


Breathing Is So Difficult To Comprehend

by Hopestill



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon Atypical Violence, Gen, Hallucinations, Horror, seteth's no good very bad terrible day at garreg mach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25692307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopestill/pseuds/Hopestill
Summary: The world Seteth knew - had always known - was always a fragile one. Political or religious upheaval could sweep Fodlan at any given moment. The focus on preventing tangible destruction leaves room for the intangible to sneak in and undermine all he took comfort in.As featured in Calamity's Advent.
Kudos: 4
Collections: Calamity's Advent





	Breathing Is So Difficult To Comprehend

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This piece is a special one; it's part of the Invincible Zine Server's first ever Fire Emblem Horror zine called Calamity's Advent! You can find the zine here: https://twitter.com/InvincibleZine/status/1290290668787695616 
> 
> Seteth's not having a good day, but when is he ever, let's be real. Minor spoilers for pre-timeskip events.

The things of this world are temporary, fleeting - even the largest, most influential institutions started as dreams, and will end as dust. Such is the way of the world, such as it is described in great detail in the teachings of the Church. Under normal circumstances, this would bring great comfort to a man of the cloth such as Seteth; come what may, all material things are a blink in Sothis’ eye, and should be treated as such. 

This… was definitely not one of those cases.

The monastery ablaze was something he only saw in his nightmares, and yet as he heard the trumpets off in the distance, armies marching along the well tread road to Garreg Mach, he could only balk in astonishment. The mere fact that one of the students entrusted to the church’s care would so much as turn her back on it, on the very institution and all it stood for, and seek to destroy it boggled his mind, but there was no time to dwell on the fact, after all. The world, as it had been understood, was coming to an end. 

Byleth and her students stood overlooking the church courtyards, Rhea at their side. Seteth folded his arms and looked over the parapets - Edelgard, shrouded in her Flame Emperor armor, was standing far off, but he could tell she was boring daggers into the lot of them. 

He returned to his mount and, finding the long spear he hesitated to use, grabbed it and hoisted the armament. He glanced at his mount, who nodded in understanding and perched in a safe alcove - given the close quarters of the church grounds, it behooved him to move on foot, to ensure each alleyway and corner was safe. “We move on your command, Professor.” 

She nodded and rose the Sword of the Creator aloft - the very thing looked alive in her hands, he thought, with how it seemed to writhe and blink with each of her commands to her students. An errant glance at Rhea told him she felt the same way. No time to dwell on the thousands of questions that pricked the back of his mind every day, though; there was an institution to uphold. The soldiers and students scattered down the stairs, making quick work of the initial soldiers sent upon the church by the empire. Seteth followed behind, keeping a close eye on Flayn the entire time. As much as she loved working with the students, he would never have forgiven himself if something were to happen to her. 

He paused upon descending the stairs, rounding a corner and into a courtyard. It was one of the courtyards he would often pace should a problem prove too great to deal with in the stuffy confines of his office. Something about the sun shining (or the rain, or the snow, or-) helped him come up with new solutions to his problems. And it was _familiar_. Every flower, every errant pebble, every blade of grass that stood up to countless footsteps had its place in this domain. 

He thought he knew where everything was; the few keystones that didn’t fit together, the ones that should have molded into a set pattern but balanced atop each other like chaos, like the three students who should have enrolled to help Fodlan _prosper_ only to rip it apart at the seams - oh, he must have seen things. With a blink, the stones were back where they should be. Where they always were. 

Seteth chided himself - “Now is not the time for sentimentality” - and firmed his grip upon the spear. Each step filled with renewed purpose and vigor, ready to resume his mission to take out Edelgard and her uprising. From a distance, he heard Byleth shouting orders, the hissing whistle of her sword crashing through the air, tearing it asunder with her presence. The sound of a spell too, cracking fire and energized electricity scattering the enemy to the winds - it occurred to him that Byleth contained enough potential to bring the entire place down to ash and embers should she will it to pass. He could only shiver at the thought. 

The alternative - she was being assailed by too many combatants - also struck him. He ran out to the main courtyard. “Professor, do you require-” his voice trailed off, consumed by the lives falling before his eyes, fuel for the fires crackling around them, burning what was once his home. Byleth held the sword above her head, and Byleth prepared a spell. Byleth deftly sidestepped an axe swing with a smirk on her face, and Byleth lost his arm, screaming to the heavens above. Seteth all but jumped behind a wall, heart racing in his chest. Shifting stones in the walls were one thing, but this-

He closed his eyes, swallowing hard. _Calm down._ He would be of no use to anyone, unable to fulfil his duties if he was acting like this was his first time on the battlefield. Undermining authority was the key to Edelgard’s attack, and it was up to him to counter that. The mantra echoing in his mind turned into words, audible, escaping his lips; “...may the Goddess deliver us all.” He reopened his eyes. Renewed purpose coursed through his veins, washing away the mounting anxiety, flooding him with vigor. 

Returning to the courtyard, he was greeted by only one Byleth, holding the Sword rather than a tome. She pointed at him, then toward the right side of the church; a flanking strategy to corner Edelgard by approaching from two sides. Of course the Professor would leave nothing to chance. With that, Seteth marched on, dutifully following orders, passing by barren stalls and empty houses and the canopy of a stall jutting out of a house like a spear driven between the ribs of its victim. 

The canopy fluttered and stuttered and disappeared just as quickly as it had intruded. A cursory look up to the flame red sky revealed clouds dancing, but not their bubbly capriccio or thunderous waltz. The clouds were alive, forcing their own will upon the wind and weather as they sank into one another, cumulonimbus into cirrus, maladapting into sharper shapes the second they decided upon a form.

There was no way that this was normal. Nor could this have been something of Edelgard’s doing as much as that could explain this. No, he seemed to be the only one aware of the way reality was ripping apart at the seams, almost as if it was screaming, begging everyone to stop that none of this was right, none of this should have happened. If he hadn’t his wits about him, he would have joined in with the earth’s cacophony. 

But as aide to the archbishop, he had to be strong. For her, for his daughter, for the rest of the students. He had to pretend everything was fine. Even as he continued his march and stumbled upon stepping on a stair that should have existed, yet it didn’t.

An enemy footsoldier, hiding in wait underneath the stairs, lunged forward with a cry. Seteth stumbled forward; his eyes widened, the lance narrowly missing his chest, cutting through the empty air with a loud hiss. Shifting his weight, he stepped back onto the selfsame stairstep he missed and twirled the spear in his hands, moving his own spear outwards to knock into the shaft of his enemy’s- diverting its path so that it would only stab the thin air next to his face. A gasp echoed from the soldier; he knew what was coming next. Seteth’s spear plunged into the unguarded face, gasp turned into gurgle turned into silence, and the heavy body fell to the stones below. Seteth exhaled a shaking breath and closed his eyes. “...May the Goddess guide you into the next life,” he prayed fervently - and upon opening them, it seemed that Sothis had answered his prayers just as quickly as he said them; there was no body. No extinguished flame. Not even a speck of blood upon the ground. 

“What…” His heart raced, beads of cold sweat forming on his forehead. He knew exactly what happened, he had just _ended someone’s life_ , and the universe now deemed it senseless? And yet there should have been a body, some evidence, anything to prove to him that this man had existed, and that he had just taken this life. This wasn’t supposed to happen, the laws and order of the universe weren’t supposed to just break like this. Some church soldiers must have heard the commotion - they weren’t asking any pertinent questions, rather they took to quizzing him for orders. All he heard was static. 

And then a high pitched shriek cut through the noise. It sounded like Bernadetta, but could he trust it? The scream rose from behind the house, but who knew if the house was real, or if it was meant to exist there. The voice inside his head told him to give orders - his heart forced him to break rank, ignoring the militia crowding him for guidance. He swore to give penitence later, if they all made it out alive, and ran over, hoping that if he could focus on one student, if he could just _focus_ on something, maybe this would go away. Maybe the world around him would stabilize, maybe this was all just brought on by stress. And as he rounded the corner, watching Caspar bury his axe in the Death Knight’s shoulder - or was it the other way around - he saw the real reason Bernadetta shrieked:

Linhardt had just narrowly missed death itself, as he stood mere inches away from the thrown scythe. “Well, I suppose that could have been problematic.” He sighed, casting a healing spell, the green energy stitching together the wound the blue-haired boy had received in the brawl. A cursory glance to the side, a knowing nod, followed up with “Oh, Seteth, you look like you’ve seen a ghost. We’re all ok over here, no thanks to Bernie giving our position away-” he waved her stuttered complaints away with the back of his hand “-but we’re fine. This position is secure.”

“Ah… Good!” Seteth breathed deeply, regaining composure as best as he could. “This should be a secure position now.” The words themselves felt hollow. He felt a bead of sweat drip down his face, swallowing his own insecurities about everything happening around him, around everyone, almost like the Goddess herself deemed it fit to destroy the world in response to Edelgard’s actions. “I will go regroup with the Professor.” His voice cracked, the image of two Byleths in his mind dropping his stomach once again. “...Flank alongside us, down that alley.” He spun off on his heel, ignoring the quizzical stares the students were boring into his back. 

The Empire’s assault was being driven back just as fast as it had arrived; Byleth’s grueling training sessions clearly paid off. He could hear the students making quick work of the enemy soldiers and mages. But any earthly victory would be hollow, meaningless, if this kept happening even after... The very thought sent a ripple of ice down his spine. 

As the soldiers pressed onward, he stood still, watching the rush of people with little interest. He turned his gaze back to the church, and watched the church’s main window shudder, bending and undulating like the ocean. The tremor of fear, primal and guttural in his left hand, only increased as a cold sweat dripped down his back. If this was how the world was going to turn, if the outcome of this battle mattered not, then may he spend his final moments with - 

“Flayn!” 

He broke into a sprint, pushing aside several bewildered swordsmen. A stray archer, hiding in a bush, had locked onto the unaware girl, who was kneeling next to a soldier, green magic at her fingertips as she closed up one of his many wounds. She smiled at the soldier who sprang to his feet, rejoining the assault, walking straight by the man in the bush. The archer stood up, arrow knocked and string pulled, announcing his presence to none but Seteth despite the emblem of the Empire all too present on his armor.

The arrow flew all too quickly, cutting through the air, slicing through it then her eyelid then her eye socket. Pushing further into her head than seemed possible, it knocked her backwards. Blood was dripping down her face, and onto her dress, and seeping into the grout between the wrong overlapping cobblestones, and the sound of pure anguish ripping itself free from her throat tore his already fragile heart in half. 

She looked up at the panicked man, confusion on her face. “Why are you not with the Professor? Did something happen?” She was alive, cheeks as rosy as ever, her eyes - eye, sparkling; the arrow was still sticking straight out of her right eye.

“Flayn, I… Did you not see the archer? Regardless, why are you not-”

“What archer?” She looked around and stood up, dusting off her pristine dress. Her hair clips faded into her hair, sinking into it like thrown stones in a pond, jolting back up only to fade into the green once more; between that and the damned arrow, it took all of what little remained of his fortitude to not immediately lose all composure at the sight. “There is no one else here. Are you alright? Your face is flushed… Are you running a fever?”

His stomach churned. “No, I am - that is…” The words just refused to come out of his mouth, the stones in the ground shifting, changing, texture and shape and it was as if the world was a plaything, sculpting clay. The world was created in Sothis’ image and likeness, Seteth knew that, and she must have decided to begin anew with the same clay. The Goddess wouldn’t have done that without prior warning, unless-

Of course. 

How could he have been so blind?

The pit in his stomach grew, threatening to swallow him and everything he held dear. He reached out and pulled the girl in a tight embrace, her protests ringing hollow in his mind. She might have said something like “You are holding me too tight, i-it hurts…”, she might have been crying - or bleeding - onto his clothes, but none of that could have mattered in the grand scheme of things. His eyes were dull, unfocused; the undulating tiles they stood upon could almost be forgotten if he simply didn’t pay attention. The only thing that mattered was his daughter, in front of him, real, _alive_ . These were their last moments in this world of clay and ash. If she said something about being unable to breathe, that he was squeezing her too hard, he couldn’t have acted upon it. _Please just let me have a few more seconds with her._

Somewhere off in the distance, he heard an axe clatter against a sword. The battle must be ending, and with it, everything. Then the exact same sound, out of resonance with itself. It repeated. And repeated. And repeated and repeated and overlapped and layered and repeated and grew louder each time and Flayn could no longer be heard over metal rendering and-

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


He blinked with a start, an errant breath hitched in his throat. Once, twice, he blinked, the memories of the battlefield disappearing just as quickly as they had arrived. The setting sun’s last rays stretched long and thin on the dark floor, and the wind whistled through a hole in the wall. He watched the pages on the desk across from him ruffle, a few scattering to the floor in the process. That day still hadn’t left him, even if the life he had before did. 

_Rhea…_

Seteth sighed, rolling the quill in his fingers, gaze drawn to the floor. It was still. The stillness, the naturality of stone floors staying where they were, not moving in the slightest - what was it Hanneman would always say? An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force - yes that was it; whatever outside force had terrorized him during the assault on the monastery was gone. He deemed it Judgement Day, but based on Flayn’s reactions (and those of the other students and clergymen) he was the only one all too keenly aware of what had been happening. And here he was. Alive. Well. Whole. The day had passed, he was very much still of this world, as were all the people he cared for, loved. Yet he still felt his gaze turn to inanimate objects when he should be filling out paperwork for the much more prevalent task of finding Rhea, making sure the world was steady. As if he had any control over it. 

The only control he had, of course, was over how much effort he put into the arduous tasks of keeping the church of Seiros afloat without Rhea, without Byleth, without the social order and mores they all had taken for granted for so, so long. And so, with renewed purpose, he refocused on the parchment before him, something about procurements for renewing the church larder. 

The pages fluttered once more; his new office suffered from errant drafts, directed in by the open door. He stood up, brushed off his clothes, and walked over. No one was going to need to stop by his office at this hour, anyway. He wrapped his fingers around the doorknob, bringing it to a close and exhaling a breath he didn’t realize he was holding at the same time. Fingertips brushing the brass, he returned to his desk. “The door is where it always has been. See?” He reaffirmed to himself with a smile. 

The door was on the right side of the room. 

The door had _always_ been on the right side of the room. 

He had taken to spending a few minutes every morning, every afternoon, every night, patrolling the church grounds to see where the walls, windows, doors, stones were. It earned him the occasional quizzical look, but it was worth it for the peace of mind it brought him, albeit how temporary it always was. No one else had mentioned anything amiss during the battle during their vivid recollections over dinner at what remained of the dining hall, and when he gingerly brought it up to Manuela, she suggested it was stress induced and for him to just join her for a drink already. The suggestion had almost made him smile. 

He returned to his work, the memory smoothing his frazzled emotions into a hazy sensation, bottled up and tossed aside to make room for charts and supply orders. He could always trust the ceaseless marching of time to gradually bury the things he wished to forget. 

“Brother! I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Yes, Flayn, what is it-”

He looked up and watched the girl step through the wall, left foot in front of her right, as if the door was there - with a jolt, the wall undulated, and snapped back into place where it truly was.

Where it always had been.

On the left.

  
  



End file.
